Words Matter By Hank Silverberg Each semester in the first meeting with my Public Speaking class, I tell my students that the theme for the class is “Words Matter.” How they speak, the words they use and how they use them can make them effective public speakers, or someone who no one wants to listen to. T his week I find myself wondering if that message needs to spread to newscasters, pundits, celebrities and politicians on a national level. Fi rst, there was Roseanne Barr. Her comments about Valarie Jarret were clearly racist. Any other interpretation simply doesn’t hold up. You can argue whether the punishment, losing her ABC show, fits the offense, but you can’t argue what the words meant. Her follow-up about being on Ambien when she tweeted was as ill-mannered and as ignorant as the original tweet.